Reply by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in compliance to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) order dated January 21, 2024 in the matter of ‘News item titled “Feeling anxious? Toxic air could be to blame” appearing in Times of India dated 10.10.2023’. NGT had directed CPCB to file a …
Maulana Talib Hussein does not find it easy to squat. Yet five times a day, the 64-year-old must get into that position to perform wudu , Arabic for the Islamic norm of cleaning. “Wudu is one of the prescribed acts of cleansing Muslims must undertake before offering prayers,” he said. …
The paper examines the influence of technological innovations on employment and labour productivity growth of a sample of 72 small and medium enterprises in the auto component sector of Bangalore. Innovative SMEs, engaged in both product and process innovations, could achieve a considerable increase in their sales and employment during …
The fonio-husking machine, invented by Rolex Laureate and mechanical engineer Sanoussi Diakite, is helping prevent a delicious, West African cereal from disappearing. His machine is liberating villagers, especially women, from the traditional, labour-intensive process of preparing fonio by hand.
Two Laureates of the Rolex Awards, one from the United States, the other from the Philippines, will team up in a bid to devise a fast-track solution to help overcome one of the major drivers of global climate change. Their proposed collaboration has the potential to make the world far …
The popular three-wheeled vehicles known as auto rickshaws are common in Asian cities where due to their older two stroke engines they have been significant contributors to the current air quality issues that plague the urban areas. Recent changes to four-stroke engines as well as those powered by diesel, compressed …
The fireless cooker is a little-used but valuable technology, comprising an insulated basket into which pre-heated food is left to cook in its own heat. During the recent Practical Action smoke alleviation project, the first fireless cooker demonstration used very smart baskets and expensive foodstuffs. The women felt it was …
ARTI (Appropriate Rural Technology Institute) developed a compact biogas system, which uses feedstock in the form of sugar, protein, fat or cellulose. It produces 1 kg biogas per kg of feedstock taking only about 24 hours to complete the reaction. The reason behind the high efficiency of the compact biogas …
Schooling the national imagination by Shalini Advani, Oxford University Press, Rs 575 How do textbooks define social roles and influence the way people look at themselves and others? Discussing the national education policy, Advani tracks the trajectory of state-produced school textbooks Amulya Reddy, Citizen Scientist by S Ravi Rajan, Orient …
A decision support system for canal water releases (CWREDSS) was developed to provide demand-based optimal canal water releases for reducing the gap between canal supplies and demands for increasing the water-use efficiency in canal command areas. The developed decision support system (DSS) was evaluated under different situations of the command …
This article reviews work that had the objective of introducing agricultural technologies in a marginal dryland area, the Khanasser Valley, northwestern Syria. The highly variable rainfall is barely sufficient to support livelihoods in this traditional barley
Solar power in India has immense potential, provided it is supported by the right financial products, Dr Harish Hande, managing director, SELCO Solar Light and winner of the Ashden and AcelorMittal Boldeness Business Awards, tells Sheetal Vyas in a candid chat.
Crude oil in the form of marine spills has always given governments, environmentalists and oil companies more than a dozen reasons to worry. Spilled on the ocean surface, it is known to cause immediate and long-term damage that is likely to continue for centuries to come. The Exxon Valdez oil …
The concept of Soleckshaw owes its genesis to the realization that the dignity of human labour needs to be upheld and that all mechanical devices must be designed to decrease human labour and emission of pollutants. But human energy is the best non-pollutant as evident by the use of millions …
The Brazilian alcohol programme, focussing exclusively on the industrial-scale production of ethanol, has been successfully operating for more than thirty years. This article discusses how the same can be accomplished for cooking and household energy - a Proalcool movement for the household. Instead of relying on large scale ethanol production …
With a project that originally began in 1998 with the work of Dr. Ing. Elmar Stumpf at the University of Hohenheim in Germany, the initial steps were taken in the development of the world
Over 83% of rural families living in the Amazonian jungle of Peru have no access to electrical energy because of the difficulty and high cost of extending the electricity grid to the region. The sustainable use of biomass to generate energy could make a significant contribution in this regard, in …
